Entertainment

Real Green Ranger Tommy hated the morbid 'POWER/RANGERS' short film

LOS ANGELES — Jason David Frank, who was cast as Tommy Oliver a.k.a. the original Green Ranger for the Power Rangers series in 1993, reacted unfavorably to Tuesday's release of a twisted 14-minute short film based on the Power Rangers franchise.

"I'm just a PG-13 guy — like the cuss words, the drugs, all this other stuff doesn't fly with me," Frank, now 41, said in a reaction video on Facebook (below). "You can't take a brand like this and reboot it so dark and gritty ... you still have the kids who want to watch Power Rangers ... we have to be responsible and know this is still a kids brand."

Though not affiliated with Power Rangers rightsowner Saban Brands, this short film is one of the darkest, if not the darkest, adaptations of our colorful defenders of Earth.

For the uninitiated, the Power Rangers are high school students who are given superpowers to defeat bad guys from destroying Earth. The TV series from 1993 has since catapulted into an international brand fueled by clothes, games, comic books and toys.

But Kahn's morbid version, with a cackling twist at the end, puts the Power Rangers in more grown-up situations filled with drugs, murder and mysterious connections.

Lionsgate and Saban Brands, which owns the rights to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers franchise, plan to "re-envision" the fighters of evil for the silver screen in a full-length film scheduled to be released on July 22, 2016.

Kahn is facing pressure from Saban Brands to take down his short film, which has already been removed from Vimeo. A tamer version (above) remains on YouTube at the time of this writing. "Y'all better watch the shit out of POWER/RANGERS. No idea how long it'll be up. Going to bed. Goodnight," Kahn tweeted to end his string of tweets Tuesday.

Vimeo took down my NSFW POWER/RANGERS short. Hope you guys downloaded it. The SFW version is still on Youtube: https://t.co/PMbHwGlsqZ

Aside from directing Swift's "Blank Space," Kahn has helmed music videos for Madonna, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Janet Jackson and many more big-name artists. He also directed the films Torque and Detention.

2. Power Rangers were inspired by Spider-Man.

3. Power Rangers were banned until 2011 in New Zealand.

In 1994, the New Zealand Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) removed the show from the air due to the number of complaints from concerned parents who were thought the show taught kids to solve their problems with violence.

10. Power Rangers has been on the air for 20 years.

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